Shrapnel
by Anticipating Boxes
Summary: AU They know who had it last, they know where it should be, but when the infamous Winchester brothers arrive in Manning the Colt has already disappeared. Meanwhile the Ruby-demon has her plans; she only needs one Winchester.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes**: To anyone who might have been waiting for this, sorry for the minor delay. I was captured by rapid squirrels who were trying to ransom me for toasters in which to cook their stolen poptarts. Also, I was too busy drooling over a (much more talented) friend's story and forgot about my own.

_Angelface_ universe. Continued on from where _Scarlet_ left off. You can go back and read the other stories first, but this story can be read alone if you like.

* * *

  
God was responsible for plenty of terrifying creatures; Predators that killed in the most vicious and indiscriminate ways. Animals with huge pointed teeth and jaws designed to crush through bones, claws made to rip and tear.

And humans, in their unfailing inegnuity, created weapons that could kill those creatures with just a small squeeze of the trigger.

God may not have been directly responsible for vampires, but humans were still directly responsible for discovering how to kill them.

Daniel Elkins was very good at killing them.

Unfortunately for him vampires had one certain strength that he didn't. They lived forever, always as young and strong as they had been when they were first made. Elkins aged, growing older and infirm with every passing year until eventually permanent injury forced him to retire. Elkins settled down in his old home town of Manning, Colorado; With a large, run down property on the edge of town, a beat up old pick-up truck, and a limp.

Vampires could wait as long as they needed to until he let his guard down just enough to let them in.

His security was a joke, easily bypassed by creatures who were practically invulnerable to bullets and knives. The old man didn't stand a chance. Cornered in his study, shaking hands trying to load an old hand gun, Elkins was torn apart by strong hands and sharp teeth.

They left him where he fell, a bloody stain on the floor. Wasted meat in a red puddle.

It would take the retired hunter's neighbours three days to notice the smell.

.

* * *

.

The black beauty was starting to get a little cramped. Four passengers, plus luggage, weaponry, and various other paraphernalia made for cramped spaces and hardly any breathing room. Sam always got the front, switching off between passenger and driver. His long legs made sitting in the back seat impossible when he had company unless that company wanted to sit in his lap. And while that was fine for short stretches of time it soon became impractical and uncomfortable.

"Dude," Sam said from the driver's seat, warily watching through the rear-view as Cas and Ruby eye each other in the back seat, "we need a bigger car."

"Don't even think about it," Dean replies immediately, jumping to the defense even when half asleep and using his jacket as a buffer between his forehead and the window. "There's no way I'm getting rid of my baby."

"So maybe we should get another car," Sam suggests with a half shrug.

Dean cracks open an eye to give him a skeptical sort of look. "You mean like it used to be with dad? You want to grab yourself some big black truck, Sammy?"

"Volvo fourdoor." The flat voiced deadpan comes from the back seat.

Sam glances at Castiel but can't see any sign that the other man was poking fun. It was hard to tell without being able to see his eyes; But Cas had decided that he'd had enough of staring competitions with demons and had turned his face so that he was looking out the window.

"Yeah," Sam says eventually, "I mean like it used to be, with two cars. We can switch off, trade passengers -"

"Fuck that."

"You can't just ride around with Cas all the time," Sam starts, but abruptly shuts up just a moment later when Dean shifted to a pose that he recognised as 'watch me ignore you, Sam'. He narrows his eyes at the road. "I know how you get, Dean."

"I think two cars is a great idea," Ruby interjects. "I'm sick of being stuck in the back seat with the guardian angel."

"Bite me."

It's sort of impressive how Castiel can manage to sound so bored even as Ruby starts to look like she'd really love to take him up on that offer and rip a hole in his larynx.

.

* * *

.

"So Elkins is pretty much dead."

"Pretty much might be an understatement," Sam says drily, looking at the police tape blocking off all entrances to the house. The laptop sitting on his thighs is open to a page from the local news directory, detailing the sudden and seemingly unprovoked murder of local man Daniel Elkins. The newspaper provides no details, but the earlier information that led them to Manning in the first place is enough to piece together a rough idea of events. Sam would bet almost anything that Elkins had been killed by vampires. "Looks like we're too late to miss the investigation."

That was also an understatement. There was no way they would be getting everything they needed without jumping through hoops. Before arriving in town they'd thought all they had to deal with was one ageing hunter. Now they had to deal with scattered possessions, a police investigation, and a house that was under lockdown. The gun could have been stolen. It could have been taken in as evidence. It could have been sold, picked up by an opportunist. Hell, it could even be buried in the guy's back yard and they'd never know where now that he wasn't alive to tell them.

"This is really fucking inconvenient," Dean mutters. His grip tightens on the steering wheel. He's not going to mention that Sam is the one who delayed them, months before, from searching this town. Sam with his Ruby obsession, and his determination to turn the childlike abomination into something they could actually work with; Someone useful and not just an unholy brat.

With the clarity that comes with a retrospective look back, Dean had realised he should have pressed for Sam to forget the human Ruby and summon a demon before they'd even left the safety of the cabin. Even so he knows he has no right to pass judgement. It's not Sam's fault that a vampire got to Elkins first.

"So what do we do, Dean?" Sam asks, shutting the laptop on his thighs with a snap. "How do we handle this one, hm?"

"I'm working on it."

"What if the gun's already gone?"

"Jesus Christ, Sammy! It's not my fault some vampire decided to chomp the guy's jugular and leave us a cold, messy surprise." Dean glares at the road ahead, glad that they'd left Ruby and Castiel at the motel. He didn't like having these kinds of talks in front of the demon. It felt too much like showing her their weak points, and Dean didn't quite trust her enough to think she wouldn't try to take advantage.

"I know." Sam sighs, hands clenching into fists on his lap before relaxing again. "I know, Dean. I'm sorry. It's just that we're so close, and now we have no way of knowing if it's still here."

"Look... We'll just do what we'd always do." Dean nods to himself. "We check out the antique places, ask a couple of the guy's friends, use a fake ID to get into the police evidence room, and search his house from top to bottom."

"Fake ID," Sam repeats, "right."

"What?"

"We've been getting a lot of exposure lately. Don't you think there's a chance that if we just waltz into the middle of an investigation someone might actually recognise us? It's happened before, remember? Not all regional cops are complete dumbasses."

"Much as I really want to argue, you've got a point there." Dean frowns. The recent debacle with Ruby had put their names in the papers again and their faces on tv. The Winchester boys, plus accomplice, kidnap and detain a sweet, innocent young woman. Then kill her parents, and presumably the girl too. "You know," he says, thinking about all of the media exposure they'd had lately, "they didn't stick Ruby's face all over the TV."

It takes Sam barely a second to catch on. "You think we should send Ruby in to check the lock up?"

"Yeah. Ruby and Cas. Hardly anyone knows their faces."

"Don't you think that's a bit of a gamble?"

"She's your girlfriend," Dean points out. Maybe with a hint of an 'I told you so' smirk. "If you can't trust her to pretend to do what you want, who can you trust?"

Sam looks like he wants to argue. A muscle in his jaw twitches. Then he sighs and the argument disappears without forming. "Do we have the right gear to make up some ID for them?"

Dean grins. He reaches over and pats his brother's arm encouragingly. "That's my boy."

.

* * *

.

The immediate reaction was pretty much what they'd been expecting.

"You've surely got to be kidding, Winchester."

Sam was sitting at the tiny motel table, bent over with a variety of inks, pens, nibs, paper, glue, and other bits and pieces that would come together into the near-perfect replicas they were after. Sam had the eye for it, a patience for detail that got him saddled with the job of creating templates. He listens to the conversation with one ear, too busy to step in.

"No, Ruby, there's no kidding. You'd know if I was kidding."

"I don't think I would," Ruby snipes, arms crossed, "your sense of humour leaves a whole lot to be desired."

"So next time I want to tell you a joke I'll haul you outside and shoot a toddler in the face. Quit your bitching. We need information."

The demon sighs and uncrosses her arms. She looks at Sam, then back at Dean. It pains her to give in, but she can see that just waltzing in and drawing information out by the point of a knife wont get her very far. The brothers were the experts in this particular field. "How exactly do we get this information? What are we supposed to do?"

.

* * *

.

Officers Mayne and Stevenson looked like the particularly grim, serious law enforcers rarely seen investigating anything but the most dire of cases. They were clearly experts. Experienced with the gruesomest crimes in the toughest cities. Something must have been very, very wrong for them to be knocking on doorsteps in this neighbourhood.

Mayne did the questioning.

She was suave and easy to talk to; A professional goddess in her tailored pantsuit, standard issue firearm concealed beneath the left side of her coat in a very smart holster. On the other hand Stevenson was forbidding, and wore his sensible black suit and blue tie with an air that made him look much taller than he actually was. He rarely added to the conversation, instead giving the impression that he was sitting there and soaking up every single word.

"Just ignore him," Mayne said, her smile open and warm. Her eyes remained guarded, and Mrs. Dower couldn't help but think it must be a police thing. They were told to smile to put you at ease, but on the inside they were still as hard and cold as steel. "He's always grumpy before his morning coffee."

Mrs. Dower glanced at Stevenson, then looked quickly back at Mayne. Mayne was much more pleasant. Mayne didn't make her feel like she was the star suspect in a TV crime show.

"Can you tell me when you last saw Mr. Elkins?"

"I suppose I saw him coming home on Monday. Well," Mrs. Dower admitted, twisting her fingers together, "I heard him coming home, I didn't see him. That old truck of his makes an awful racket, I'd recognise the sound anywhere."

"Do you know if anyone was with him that night?"

"No, Mr. Elkins was very self contained." Mrs. Dower frowned as she dredged up every memory she had of her neighbour. "He never had guests, not even on Christmas. I suppose he didn't have any family left, the poor man. As long as I've lived here - and that's maybe ten years or so - I never once saw a single visitor, except perhaps the mailman."

Mayne nodded thoughtfully, her dark hair bobbing around her shoulders. "you say you don't think he had a family. What about friends? Was there anyone you know of that he spoke to most often?"

"Oh, well... I suppose he spoke to Mr. Garret quite frequently, but I wouldn't imagine they were friends. Mr. Garret is an art collector, he runs the local museum and historical society. Mr. Elkins had nothing to do with the society itself, but I'd say he had an interest in historical matters." Mrs. Dower hesitated, looking back and forth between Mayne's encouraging expression and Stevenson's glower. "Is that helpful? Please, do tell me if I ramble, I wouldn't want to waste your time."

"No, Mrs. Dower, you're doing just fine." Mayne checked a tiny notepad that she took from her jacket pocket. "Do you know if Mr. Elkins had an interest in collecting antiques? Perhaps antique weaponry?"

"No," Mrs. Dower blinked dumbly. "Not to my knowledge."

"Did he have any enemies that you know of?" Stevenson spoke suddenly, his voice gruff and his words clipped.

Mrs. Dower's gaze shot to the male FBI agent. She was startled by the question, though she'd seen in asked on television shows plenty of times before. "No. No, I can't imagine that he did."

"Thankyou, Mrs. Dower." Mayne took over again, smoothly capturing her attention. "Just one last question. Do you know if anyone new has arrived in town in the past month? Someone who wasn't just passing through."

"Oh, yes." Mrs. Dower nodded. "A group of young people came into town just last week. I believe they're renting the old Kensington farmhouse by the creek. But I don't see what that has to do with -"

"Thankyou," Stevenson cut in abruptly. "For your time Mrs. Dower."

Both agents stood. Stevenson left without another word while Mayne reached out to shake the old woman's hand. The FBI agent left her with a card and instructions to call if she thought of anything else that might be useful to their investigation. Mrs. Dower was left sitting in her living room, pondering her neighbour's death. In death, Elkins suddenly seemed much more interesting than in life. She wondered who had murdered him and why... And promptly forgot all about it the very second she turned on the tv.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes**: I know about the tense shift. I'll fix it if you really object, otherwise I'm afraid it's staying as is. Otherwise, enjoy the new chapter.

* * *

Ruby tucked her notebook back into the pocket of her jacket, feeling shudders rake her skin with the urge to go back and kill that woman on her living room floor. "That was a phenomenal waste of time," she said as she slithered into the plain blue sedan they had picked up to look like the boring feds they were playing.

Castiel was in the driver's seat, his expression indecipherable past some kind of annoyance. "It was information," he said blandly. The car started with a purr, not a roar, and it was an automatic. He shifted his hands on the wheel, feeling more uncomfortable in this car than he had in the old woman's house.

"It was a disgusting human farce."

"Are you omniscient?" Cas asked without taking his eyes from the road.

Ruby didn't give an immediate reply. She sat fuming in the passenger seat of the modern sedan. She got the point, she knew why they were doing things this way. Without a web of resources at her back, without the support of other demons that she could wheedle favour from, she had no choice but to do things the slow, disgusting, human way. "If the next one has no good information, I will kill him dead and use his blood to flavour my wine."

Sam's trust was still more useful to her than the shortcuts she could take.

-

* * *

-

Mr. Garret spent most of his time either at the small historical society museum or at his own antique store. The Treasury Emporium was clearly one of those antique stores that was a labour of love and not built to make money. The store was cluttered with cases, shelves and display cabinets all kept so close together that they barely left room to walk through. Only a very small person would be capable of walking through the tiny corridors facing forwards. Anyone of normal size needed to inch along sideways or risk bumping shoulders and hips against the cases.

Everything was labelled. Hand written tags specified the item, the year, and the price in clean-cut cursive.

The front desk and register were antiques in themselves, old enough that coming into the store was like stepping back in time. Mr. Conrad Garret's tweed suit and tartan bowtie only added to that impression. In fact, he looked so much like a stereotypical English gentleman from the early 20th century that it always came as a shock when you realised that his accent was Midwest American.

"What can I do for you, sir, ma'am?"

Ruby gave the man her detective smile, the one that purposefully didn't quite reach her eyes. She flashed her badge, watching his eyes widen briefly. "My name is Bridgette Mayne, this is my partner, agent Stevenson. We'd like to ask you a few questions about your friend Mr. Elkins."

Conrad Garret blinked away his surprise and pushed his wire-framed glasses further up his nose. "Let me just close up for a while and I'll be right with you. Please, feel free to look around."

Stevenson took the offer at face value. He worked his way into one slender corridor with determined precision, his icy blue gaze darting methodically up and down each case looking for one item in particular. Glassware, porcelain, paper and knickknacks deserved nothing more than a passing glance before he moved on. Cases examined and dismissed.

By the time Conrad returned Stevenson had disappeared from view entirely. The shop owner looked at Mayne curiously but received no recognition or reply to his silent query.

"Do you have somewhere we could sit?" Mayne asked, her kind brown eyes staring pointedly at the chairs behind the front counter.

"Sorry," Conrad demurred, opening up the flip top in the counter to let her through before him. "Of course. Please, make yourself at home."

He didn't offer refreshments. Ruby/Maybe was grateful for that; She doubted she could keep a straight face if he offered tea. Or worse, beer. The discrepancy between the man's image and his accent was jarring. She sat down in one of the chairs like she owned the shop and waited for Conrad to sit before she spoke. "How long would you say that you knew Daniel Elkins?"

Conrad shifted in his seat, tweed suit becoming rumpled. "I became acquainted with Mr. Elkins the day he first came to town several years ago. A long time now, twenty odd years if it's a day."

"How well did you know him?" Mayne arched one perfect eyebrow; "A Mrs. Dower intimated that you may have been Mr. Elkins' only friend."

It was not a stretch of the imagination to say that Conrad looked uncomfortable. "We weren't close friends," he said, looking dour. "In matters of discussion we conversed like acquaintances. Only when we spoke of antiques did Daniel show any passion. I believe he was more interested in history than in people. He liked mythology especially; folklore, local legends. He had a fascination for the stuff... We were associates, Agent Mayne. Not friends."

"Did he ever talk to you about a personal collection?"

"A personal collection? Of antiques, not as such. No, Daniel expressed an interest in the history of items," Conrad shook his head as if marvelling over the small eccentricities of an old friend, "not the items themselves. Over the years he did purchase many items, but they were largely ornamental, a few first edition books. Nothing overly unusual if that's what you mean." Conrad paused then. He adjusted the button on one of his jacket cuffs, an odd look on his face. "You're not suggesting that he was killed for his collection?"

Mayne gave him a noncommittal smile. "We're exploring all avenues at this point. Mr. Garret. Did Mr. Elkins ever mention an antique gun? A special gun. Did he ever ask you about the legends behind certain weapons?"

"No, not that I can recall," Conrad began, then clucked his tongue. "I'm an old duffer. There was one thing I remember, it struck me as odd for a man like Daniel. He once asked me what I knew about Samuel Colt, specifically about the manufacture of his weaponry. It sticks with me because it was so odd. I make no secret of my dislike of firearms, so to be asked about folk legends of their manufacture seems just a bit odd."

Mayne nodded. She smiled in thanks but let nothing else through. "Thankyou. Just a few more questions, Mr. Garret. Do you know if Mr. Elkins had any family?"

"No. he spoke of a son once or twice, but always with the impression that the boy was deceased."

"Was Mr. Elkins known for telling strange stories?" Mayne asked. She caught sight of Stevenson from the corner of her eye as he emerged from the maze of cabinets. He shook his head. "Was he perhaps a heavy drinker?" Mayne prompted.

Conrad sighed. "It was a well kept open secret that Daniel was an alcoholic. He spent most of his evenings at the local tavern, drinking alone."

Mayne exchanged a glance with her partner. Their next destination was obvious. "Thankyou for your time, Mr. Garret."

"The rosary in the third oak cabinet is mislabelled," Stevenson added on his way out, the door slamming shut on his last syllable. "Eighteenth century."

Mayne followed him back to the stolen sedan, her sensible black heels clacking against the pavement. "You are just full of surprises, aren't you?" she drawled. "A deep well of unfathomable knowledge wrapped in a hard candy-coated shell."

Stevenson stared at her in silence, his blue eyes boring into her in a way that any mortal would have found intimidating. Ruby let the black flood her eyes, waiting until he looked away first.

"Look," she cooed, feeling antagonistic because Castiel was the only person she could show her true self to outside the hotel. "I think I just found the gooey centre."

"My centre is none of your business," Castiel stated, eyes narrowed. he floored the accelerator without waiting for her to buckle her seatbelt. "We have work to do."

"All work and no play makes Cas a dull boy." Ruby put her feet up on the dash, flexing her calves to point her toes towards the window.

"As long as my blade stays sharp."

Ruby laughed, the insincere sound tinkling through the air over the purr of the engine. "I think that's the first time I've ever heard you joke. Congratulations, what a triumph."

"I don't joke."

Looking at the static expression and hard posture that belonged to the Winchester brother's own 'guardian angel', Ruby believed it.

-

* * *

-

By the time they got back to the hotel it was too late to show up at the tavern and expect a reasonable amount of time from any of the employees. Undivided attention would be impossible to come by from five o'clock onwards. it was better to wait until morning and catch the early shift. If Elkins was as much of a regular as Garret had suggested even the bartends who didn't see much of him would be able to give some information. From their own stints as bartends or short order cooks the Winchester brothers knew how people in the hospitality industry talked to one another. Regular customers were just fodder for gossip.

Ruby kicked her sensible shoes off the moment she entered the suite. She stripped her tailored suit piece by piece on the way to the bathroom and slammed the door behind herself. A tiny 'snickt' was the lock popping into place.

Sam picked up her black lace bra from where it had fallen across his lap and raised his eyebrows at Castiel, who showed no pressing need to undress or sequester himself in the bathroom as if the very act of pretending to be a lawman had made him feel dirty. "What was that about?"

"Ruby is wary of playing the good cop," Castiel said dryly.

Something, most likely a fist - possibly one of the fixtures, slammed against the inside of the bathroom door.

Sam looked at the door thoughtfully. "Evidently."

Cas moved to stand by the edge of the bed closest to the window. He removed the pistol from its place at the small of his back and the razor from his pocket. The pistol he dumped onto the bedspread, the razor he placed carefully on the bedside table near the lamp. He was about to take his coat off when large, calloused hands settled on his shoulders.

"Been behaving yourself out there on your own, angelface?"

"Dean." Castiel spoke the single word softly, closing his eyes.

Lips pressed against the back of his neck above his shirt collar. "You slit her throat," Dean murmured into his ear, soft enough that it wouldn't carry, "if she makes even one wrong move. I trust you more than any demon bitch, Cas."

Castiel couldn't help but wonder if Sam would feel the same, if he would be so understanding if Cas were to damage the Ruby-body that the demon inhabited. The body she wore was alive, beating heart and all. Under her influence it could heal from any number of wounds. Killing the body wouldn't kill the thing inside it; It would only force it to find a new shell. "I wouldn't give her the satisfaction," he said, leaning into Dean's touch.

Careful, clever hands pushed the coat from his shoulders. The fabric fell to the floor in a crumpled pile, abandoned as he was spun around to face the elder Winchester. Green eyes looked him over, assessing him, looking for cracks in his carefully constructed persona after a day of pretending to be someone else. Cas would have reassured him if he'd asked - he'd been Dean's guardian angel for more than three years now. He wasn't about to change any time soon.

"We go to the tavern tomorrow," Castiel said instead, fisting his hands in the front of Dean's shirt. "The house will be free for you to search. we'll know all we can after that."

Ruby emerged from the bathroom soon after, naked except for a towel wrapped around her body, exposing her long legs and one hip. She slid sinuously into the other bed, her back arching as she threw Sam an enticing look.

There was no concept of privacy between the murderers. Years of sharing the same space had done away with superficial shyness. The demon had no reason to care.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes**: Yes, I'm still writing this universe. Boo. Not that you care.  


* * *

Morning came too fast and too bright, lighting up the interior of the hotel room with insistent intensity. The curtains that had seemed heavy the day before suddenly didn't block enough of the light and the alarm that had been set on Sam's phone suddenly didn't seem as necessary.

When he woke the other bed was empty and the space beside him was cold. The hour was later than he expected, and from the sounds of things Dean had already raided the kitchenette to make what passed as coffee - instant, bitter, and stuffed with two full packets of non-dairy creamer. The resulting bitter smell hung in the air, tempered by the tiniest hint of sugar.

Sam sat up in the bed, blankets bunching around his waist. He was just finishing up a yawn when something hit him square in the face. Sam pulled the offending article away from his face only to realise that he was holding one of his own shirts.

"Hurry up, sleepy-head," Dean's voice came to him from across the room. "We're burning daylight."

"The house isn't going to grow legs and walk away, Dean," Sam grumbled, shrugging into the shirt so that he was wearing more than just a pair of boxers when he got out of the bed.

"You missed breakfast," Dean informed him, unmerciful and full of brotherly scorn. "'Course, it doesn't help you were up half the night boning your demon girlfriend and keeping the rest of us awake with your disgusting cow-noises."

"Shut up," Sam replied eloquently, trudging to the bathroom and ignoring the lingering ache of muscles that hadn't been properly warmed down after a workout. It was a marvel that the bed had survived. Ruby was a lot stronger than any human woman.

He went through the motions of a morning routine, slowly waking up under the spray of a hot shower. It occurred to him as he stared at the tiled wall that single rooms might not be the most efficient means of rest and relaxation. When it was just two people on the road together a single room was fine. Sam and Dean were used to sharing. They'd grown up with it, and living in one another's pockets was second nature. Cas was silent enough that it was sometimes like living with a shadow. But throwing Ruby into the mix had changed the dynamic. She baited, sniped, and casually waltzed her way through their life on the road. She introduced an element of combustion that hadn't been there before. She made the car smaller, the hotel more confining. She made Sam think about separate motel rooms, separate cars, about leaving for meals on their own and taking the long way back so he could enjoy her body and her biting humour without the lurking tension.

Sam was wide awake by the time they got in the car. He shouldered Dean aside and drove them through the drive-through of a takeout place, ordering a meal he could eat while driving.

The black beauty was parked in the back yard, out of sight should anyone chance to pass by. The brothers ignored the caution tape and jimmied open the back door. They were greeted by the faint smell of old blood and dry rot. The house itself was in good repair, rigged with a security system that would have made their job much more difficult had it actually been on.

The power had been off since Elkins had been declared dead. The local utility company wasted no time.

The house had all the hallmarks of a retired hunter. The books, the weapons, the obsessive security measures. Careful examination revealed sigils painted on the walls and around thresholds, concealed by clever arrangement of furniture and ornaments. A devil's trap was painted under the rug in the living room.

Elkin's bedroom was where the murder had taken place, that much was obvious. Dark dried smears marred the floors and the walls, hand prints on the rumpled bedspread. Evidence had already been removed from the scene, but Sam knew enough about crime scenes to spot the marks on the walls from misfired bullets. The safe was opened, but the contents appeared untouched.

Only after closer examination did Sam notice that something was missing. The plain green case that sat on the top shelf in the safe was totally empty; Except for a piece of cushioning foam that, from the depth of the indentations, looked as if it were only a bottom layer. Something had been taken out. Something that was clearly more valuable than the thousands in cash sitting right beneath it.

Sam took the cash, and left the case. They weren't so well off that they'd turn down their noses at an easy score.

"We've definitely got our man," Dean said when Sam emerged. "But we're missing the gun."

"I don't think it was taken as evidence." Sam shook his head, looking grim. "Someone took it. Someone who knew what they were looking for and who wasn't a friend of his."

"So Elkins is dead," Dean ticked off the points on his fingers as they left the house, closing up the door behind them, "the gun is gone, and our only leads come from a half blind old biddy, a clueless scholar, and a stone cold dead vampire in the county morgue."

"That s about the sum of it."

"Fuck."

"Yep," Sam agreed, slamming the car door. "Fuck."

The only consolation, so far as he could see, was that the gun didn't appear to have been taken by another hunter. A hunter wouldn't have made as much of a mess as what was left back there. A hunter almost certainly wouldn't have killed Elkins just to get to the gun. All of their leads were dead. But not yet dead ends.

The sedan was already in the hotel parking lot by the time they got back, and the brothers had barely walked through the door to the suite before Cas greeted them with a single word; "Vampires."

"The town is infested," Ruby added, sounding pleased with that fact. She lounged on the bed that she was sharing with Sam, dressed in her own clothes and repainting her nails a vivid blood red, the colour of hot blooded violence. "The bumpkins think they're just a group of rowdy youths, a biker gang or something equally inane. It seems like they had a beef with Elkins, made a beeline straight for him at the bar one night. The night just before the coroner's report suggests that he died."

The brothers looked at one another, Sam's eyes glowing briefly in triumph. "Vampires killed Elkins," he murmured, "vampires have the Colt."

"So kill the vampires," Dean finished, "and we get the Colt."

It was an oversimplified view of what needed to be done, but at the same time it was the most logical course of action. They didn't have the patience or the means to go fussing about with negotiations; There was nothing they had that a vampire would want, except their own lifeblood. They knew no rituals or voudou to bend a vampire's will. Violence was the only recourse.

"Bloodthirsty violence," Ruby examined her fingernails in the light, the wet red of the nail polish shimmering under the lamplight. "It's about bloody time."

-

* * *

-

They approach during daylight, using the little advantage that it gives them. The farmhouse is a wreck. It's the sort of place that could easily get associated with gangs - it had that sort of dangerous feel to it and a familiar, easy to defend layout. In another life the Winchester brothers might have stayed there for a night or two while on the road.

As soon as they split up to slip inside it becomes obvious that they've miscalculated.

-

* * *

-

"It looks like we're at a stalemate," Sam observes coolly over the top of her head as he presses his blade tight against her neck. She was his bargaining chip; He couldn't kill her yet, but that didn't mean he had to keep her comfortable. He draw a line across her throat, barely nicking her skin with the blade. It was a warning, a threat and a reminder. He could kill her as easy as slicing into warm butter and everyone in the room better remember that.

"It does indeed." The vampire's eyes were locked on Sam's blade. His knuckles were white, clenched too tight around the twin blades that he held. He itches to throw the knives, to spear the half-demon through his skull and end the standoff before it could drag on much longer. The crossbow aimed tight at his chest by the half-blood's brother was the only thing stopping him. He could smell the old dead blood from across the room.

-

* * *

-

They split into pairs - Dean and Ruby took the front door while Sam and Castiel took the back. The windows were boarded, shut tight with sheets of plywood nailed over the frames from the inside. The cellar door was chained and bolted from the outside.

No movement could be heard or seen on the inside. No pleas for mercy from captives. The smell of old blood and decay was sweet and heavy in the air, a cloying smell that overpowered everything but a bizarre hint of garlic.

"This can't be good," Dean mutters as he pops the lock on the front door with way too much ease. He can't help a feeling of unease.

"We're ambushing the spider in its lair," Ruby drawls, her voice a low murmur that barely carries a foot past her lips, "only an idiot would feel confident about this." An idiot, or a demon. Unlike Dean, Ruby had no reason to fear death from a vampire.

-

* * *

-

Ruby stands behind Sam, her hands covered in the crusting gore from her bare-handed struggle with the headless corpse beside her. Blood drips from her nose in a slow steady stream, smearing her mouth and chin with wet red and her knuckles were scraped and swollen. Both injuries were only temporary annoyances. As soon as she could gather enough concentration it would be like they never existed.

Sam glances back at her, then across to his brother and to Castiel - who's injuries were already blooming into dark bruises across one side of his face. From the way he was standing Sam would guess at cracked ribs, but there was dark blood staining the machete that he carried and from the corner of his eye Sam could see a severed arm lying nearby.

He takes stock of their position.

Backed up against a wall, ten metres from the front door, trapped by five very pissed off vampires. One hostage. Sam could feel his shoulder burning, protesting the grip he had on his vampire hostage. He'd been slammed into a wall barely two minutes ago and he could already tell that his back would be one big bruise tomorrow.

"How about a deal?" Sam asks, subtly shifting the position of his knife to let the alpha vampire see the cut on his mates neck. "A trade. Give us the Colt, and I'll give you the girl."

-

* * *

-

Sam goes first. He enters the farmhouse with his knife held at the ready. It's one of the larger hunting knives from Dean's collection - too small for a clean beheading if the victim is struggling, but Sam can count on his powers to keep them still. He can feel Castiel following behind him, a solid presence with a stolen machete that had been sharpened to the point of perfection.

They're standing in the hallway between several open doors when it happens. Sam swears aloud as the vampires appear, boxing them in the narrow hallway.

-

* * *

-

The laugh was expected. A humourless, cynical sound. "Hunters that keep their promises are a fable. If you kill Kate, I promise you won t be leaving. You'll be dead, and your friends will feed us for days."

"We're not hunters. The gun is all we came for. We didn't know you were in town when we came here. If you hadn't taken it we wouldn't have even acknowledged your existence. Give the gun to us and we leave you to it. We don't give a shit how many humans you eat."

The alpha male was silent as his eyes roamed over their group. The humans they could take, tactical disadvantage or not, but the demon and the half-blood complicated things. "Swear it," the vampire demanded eventually, his glare daring Sam to say no. "Spill your own blood and swear that you'll keep your word and leave."

"Done." Sam's smile was cold and treacherous. He nods and glances back at his brother.

Dean lets the crossbow drop so the point is to the floor. He takes a pocketknife from his jeans and moves so that he's standing close enough to Sam to press the tip to his brother's forearm where it would be seen as he digs in until blood wells around the blade.

"I give my word," Sam smiles, yellow eyes catching the light. "That once we have the Colt I will give you back my hostage and we will leave."

Dean removes the pocket knife and tosses the bloody blade to the alpha vampire. "You have the blood," he says, and swings the crossbow back up so the bolt is aimed directly at the vampire's chest again, "now it's bound. Are you going to take his word or do we have to start this all over again?"

Ruby cracks her knuckles, her smile a bloody smear as black as her eyes. "My professional advice is that you don't take the deal," she informs the vampire gleefully.

The vampire is silent for much longer than is necessary. Eventually he tucks the bloody knife into a pocket and gestures to one of his clan. The other vampire disappears into another room and returns with the gun and a small round pouch that presumably contains the ammunition. He tosses both across the room where they land near Dean's feet. The human crouches down to retrieve the gun and examines it carefully as he stands. He looks for the maker's mark, checks the barrel clip and the ammunition. Finally he nods to Sam. "This is the one."

Sam releases the vampire he'd been holding and shoves her back towards her people. The alpha vampire catches her; He holds her possessively close, cooing at her injury. Then there's the sudden sound of a gunshot and the vampire drops. His mate screams and Dean pulls the trigger again. A dark round hole opens up in her head right between her eyes and she collapses in a heap beside her dead mate.

"How many bullets are left, Dean?" Sam asks calmly.

"Four in the bag, four in the gun."

"Eight rounds, four vampires." Sam smirks as he turns to leave. "Don't miss any."

"I think you're forgetting who taught you to shoot."


	4. Chapter 4

Seven bodies makes for a massacre.

Despite injuries and bloodstained clothes the brothers make sure they're back on the road before the end of the night, not bothering to check out of the hotel. Ruby drives with Sam in the front seat to keep a close watch on her. She's the only one of them without any lingering injuries, no bruises marring the pale perfection of her skin and the only sign that her nose had once been broken were a few flakes of blood still crusted around her nostrils.

Sam's shoulder aches and he can't get comfortable in the confines of the car. The best he can do is down one of the vicodin from their first aid kit and wait for it to kick in. He doesn't envy his brother in the back seat. If Dean were alone he would have been able to stretch his legs. Instead he has to keep an obviously sprained ankle still wrapped snug in layers of socks and leather and stay seated straight to accommodate the other body in the back seat.

Despite the look of discomfort on his face every time he shifts, Dean doesn't seem to mind. He just lets Castiel lean against him, the uninjured side of his face pressing against his lover's shirt. Together they look like the perfect poster for domestic abuse. Bruised, bloody, and content.

The Colt is still sitting on the seat in the tiny space between their bodies.

Sam closes his eyes and leans his head back as he listens to the radio and the Whorehouse Blues.

The next time he opens his eyes the sun is so far up in the sky that it must be close to noon and his lower back has decided to cramp. He shifts with a groan and looks for signs or landmarks to make sure that Ruby is still headed in the right direction. He has to wait five minutes before the next road sign, sitting in silence with Ruby behind the wheel. She doesn't look away from the road.

The inside of the car is starting to smell, a mix of sweat and dried blood that makes him wrinkle his nose and wish for soap and hot water to soak the grime from his skin.

He shifts and relaxes a little when the sign reads for the right direction. "Do you need a rest?"

Ruby shakes her head, her hands firm on the wheel. She's travelling twenty over the speed limit and looks as comfortable as if she were on a scenic drive. "Travelling by car is slow," she tells him. "But it doesn't take a whole lot of energy. Unlike you, I don't have to have to sleep. You look very vulnerable when you sleep, Sam, all cute and cuddly like a fuzzy little bear."

He can't help but smirk at her patronising tone. "Humanity has its setbacks," he admits. "You should get used to it, you're travelling with humans now."

"You're not human. Sam."

"If you want me to be something else you're going to be disappointed. Don't fool yourself, Ruby." He stretches as much as he can while in the confines of the black beauty's front passenger seat, rearranges himself so he can watch her face as she drives. "I'm only half demon," he tells her, "and I couldn't give a fuck what that means."

Ruby lapses into silence again, string straight ahead at the road. Sam shifts on the seat, unbuckling his seatbelt and curling onto his side so he can rest his head against her thigh. His back protests the movement but settles down into a bearable throbbing ache as he stays still.

It's only after a long, awkward silence that the demon moves. She places one of her hands on his hair and deliberately strokes it back from his forehead. There's no real affection in the gesture.

Sam thinks about his brother and Castiel in the back seat, still sleeping somehow, smushed together in a tangle of body parts that somehow doesn't look uncomfortable. He sighs.

The place they're going to is different from their usual haunts. It's a small seaside town situated just a few minutes from the beach, a tourist haven that sees so many new faces come and go in a week that it's almost a surety that they won t be noticed.

They pick a cabin owned by a company and make the arrangements over the phone while sitting in the parking lot of a motel they'd used only to shower and dress in clothes that weren't crusted in blood and sweat. Keys are picked up on the way and in just a short time they're parking the car outside a cosy two bedroom double storey house.

It's decorated in shades of brown and green with a surfer-kitsch motif, the kind of bland holiday location that nobody expects to spend much time in. The brothers spread out their maps on the dining room table that evening, fighting for room with pizza boxes and beer bottles.

"If we move north from here," Dean says, following the route on the map with his index finger, "we can stop in at this town for a few months, get some honest work and a decent house for a while."

"Do some petty crime to keep ourselves sharp," Sam agrees, frowning at the map. "We've been there before," he says after a moment, "back when I was thirteen, remember? There's this church on the outskirts of town with this funky little graveyard. Some of the stones dated back to the 1800s."

"So we bring shovels," Dean nods to himself and grabs another slice of pizza from the open box. "And dig us up some wealthy corpses."

"I was thinking we could replenish our supply of teeth and finger bones. Last I checked we didn't have much left in the emergency box."

"Thinking of doing some black magic, Sammy?"

The younger Winchester shrugs, still frowning down at the map. "I just think it's a good idea to be prepared."

"You're just a regular little boy scout aren't you, baby brother?"

"Shut up, Dean."

"Make me," Dean says around a mouthful of pizza, smirking.

Sam pulls a face at his brother and pushes himself away from the table. He retrieves an unopened beer from the fridge and cracks it open as he leans against the counter. His back still twinges when he bends too far in any one direction. "I don't think I'm going to be around much while we're here," he confesses, glancing up at the ceiling where he knows Ruby is sequestered away in the bathroom. "I want to keep a close eye on her. I need to know we can trust her."

"I know, Sam."

"If she's staying... Dean," Sam sighs. "I want what you have with Cas. If that's not going to happen then at least I have to trust her."

"I know. Go do some bonding," Dean suggests quietly, casual like it's not a big deal that his baby brother just confessed a need for a different level of companionship. "Take her out and kill some college kids or something. Whatever it is demon girls do for fun these days. Just don't -"

"Get caught," Sam finishes with him, rolling his eyes. "Jesus, Dean. Talk about a broken record."

-

* * *

-

Blood red nails tap idly against the countertop. Ruby smiles as she wraps her lips around the straw in her orange juice. It makes Sam wonder if she's ever had one before, or if she's just indulging him by ordering a juice and a garden salad; Secretly bored out of her skull and disgusted by the human body's need of food.

She didn't need to eat, of course. The demon could keep her body alive and well through sheer force of will for years if she wanted. Ruby either ate because she liked it or because it made her appear more normal, more like him.

"Do you like to eat?" Sam asks, realising that for all that they've been travelling together for weeks now he knows almost nothing about her.

Ruby looks up at him, an odd expression on her face that might have been surprise. Her lips quirk into a wry little smirk. "I like the disgusting perversions," she tells him, poking at her leafy green salad with her fork, "fried, fatty foods stuffed with grease and sugar. They're a testament to human ingeniuity." The smirk grows. "It makes them slower and easier to catch."

"So you order a salad?"

The fork stabs viciously at a piece of lettuce. "I'm an enigma. Maybe I like to keep you off balance."

"Maybe you just don't want to get fat." Purposefully antagonising, he takes a long sip of his cream-topped iced chocolate. He keeps his eyes on her face as he licks cream off his bottom lip.

"Demons don't get fat."

"But you still ordered a salad."

Ruby purses her lips into an odd sort of smile as she looks at him. "You caught me," she says after a moment. "I like the way it crunches. If we were alone we could move faster."

The change in topic took a moment to register. Ruby's tone had been practically the same for both statements, no indication of any shift in her mood. She was still looking at Sam the same way, odd little smile still on her face.

He frowns, for a moment not sure what she was getting at. "What?"

"Alone," Ruby repeats, and elaborates with a casual smile. "If it was just the two of us on the road, Sam. We could move faster, do more. You could reach your full potential without anything or anyone holding you back. Wouldn't you like to be free? To not worry about being caught? You and I could carve a bloody swathe across this dirt-mound country, nothing would stand in our way."

"Are you trying to tell me I should leave Dean behind?"

"Don't you want to be your own person, Sam?"

"You want me to travel the country with you alone. You want me to leave my family behind and follow you God knows where." Sam stares at her across the table and under the fluorescent lighting in the cafe his eyes seem to flicker between yellow and brown as he thinks. "Ask me again," he says eventually, watching her reaction, "when you love me."

The answer is clearly not what she was expecting. Ruby stiffens, her expression going cold. She looks offended, as if the concept of love is cause for disgust, as if it's asking too much. Her chair scrapes against the floor as she stands, and within moments she's gone from the cafe, leaving no trace, no way to follow, and Sam still sitting at the table with his hands clenched into fists.

-

* * *

-

The playground is the perfect slice of beachside heaven. Close enough to the beach to view the water but far enough away that there's far more grass than sand underfoot. A jungle of climbing toys dominates the landscape, monkey bars and swing set and slides; benches for mothers or passers-by to sit on, barbecue pits and picnic tables in a surrounding circle.

Dean sits at one of those tables, dividing his attention between watching the waves lapping at the beach and looking at the children playing nearby. He does it from the corner of his eye, far too aware of the talk-show warning signs of a paedophile to risk openly watching the playground.

Dean isn't a paedophile. He doesn't want to touch the kids or lure them off with promises of fun and candy.

No. He watches them and he envies their parents. He thinks about playing in parks with Sam when they were kids, their dad watching from the car to make sure they were safe. It's a weird feeling, but Dean wishes that he could do that. He wishes he could be one of those parents, sitting on the benches while his kid made instant friends with total strangers for an afternoon.

He pictures a kid in the back seat of the black beauty, napping on long trips like he and Sam used to, going to school when they settled into a town for a few months or a year. He imagines teaching the kid how to shoot, how to handle a blade, all of the life skills that he ever found the most useful. He misses the teaching.

Cas returns to his side with hotdogs and soda from a vendor up the road - classic beach fare on a warm day. Dean takes one of the hotdogs and switches to watching his angel-faced lover licking ketchup from his lips and fingers. He can't help but smirk a little when he thinks that after close to three years this might just be their first official date.

Dean cracks open his can of soda and thinks about his relationship with Castiel. "You have any kids, Cas?"

Cas looks at him, momentarily startled. "You should know," he says after a pause, guarded as he tries to gauge Dean's intentions.

"You had at least one. A little blonde girl in school. You could've had others we didn't see. Toddlers too young to leave mommy's apron strings."

Castiel's face closes off further. For a moment he's totally unreadable even to Dean. "There was just the one. Claire."

"How old?"

"She'd be thirteen now."

"Started young, huh?" Dean lets the silence stretch on, taking the time to appreciate the taste of cheap hotdogs on a sunny afternoon. He lets the taste of mustard fade on his tongue until the tartness is all his own. "You ever miss her, angelface?"

Cas' eyes flash and go cold. "I don't think about her."

"Think she misses you?"

Dean is needling. He knows it, purposefully pushing to see which spots are still tender. He spreads his legs under the table until his knee brushes against Castiel's, waiting for the reaction.

"She misses her father," Cas says stiffly.

"You mean you?"

"No."

"You mean Novak then? The Sunday school teacher who'd never hurt a fly."

"Dean..."

"The guy you fucked sideways with a broom handle and shoved into the trash with your past."

"Please." Cas sounds cold, distant; but his eyes give him away. Dean has caught him red-handed in regret. "Don't."

"I want a kid, Cas." Dean sighs. "I wish we could have some of that old life you had. Forget the suburban sweetness, Sunday school bullshit. Just give me the doe-eyed sweetheart calling me 'dad'. I always kind of wanted kids, you know. I figured I'd wind up with one eventually, get myself a girlfriend for as long as it took for her to pop out a kid and disappear with it as soon as it was old enough."

Cas was silent for a full minute. Dean was back to watching the playground when Castiel spoke. "That sounds impractical."

"Yeah."

"I wouldn't trust Ruby around a child," Cas elaborates calmly, a steely edge to the blue of his eyes. "It's better to wait and choose a child when we are prepared for it."

Dean takes a moment to catch up. He gives Castiel an odd kind of look, not sure he caught the right intonations and the look in his eye. The green eyed murderer grins. "Did you just tell me we should kidnap a kid?"

"How else would we get one? Neither of us," Castiel points out, dry as dust, "is equipped for childbirth."

"What did I do to deserve an angel like you?"

A rare, small smile makes the corners of Castiel's mouth turn up. "You kidnapped and tortured me. Fortune must favour the wicked." Cas toys idly with his soda can, running his fingers along the folded lip. "I am," he adds, quiet and serious just a moment later. "Happy with you. I love you, Dean. I love it when you pull the trigger, watching you kill. The sunset and blood like fire. I started falling in love with you the first time I saw you splatter a woman's brains on the concrete."

Dean smiles. He takes hold of Cas' hand and squeezes his fingers. "Kidnap a kid with me, Cas?"

"One day," Cas agrees, looking out at the ocean. "We'll pick one that looks like you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes**: Next chapter is the last one in this particular story/installment. I'm having trouble writing what happens after that, so if anyone feels up to listening to me rant and question I'd be grateful of the help.

-

* * *

The house was empty when Sam got back. Ruby's few things were still where she had left them, her nail polish sitting on the bedside table and the small bag with her few changes of clothes still open on the floor by the bed. Sam sits down on the end of the bed, hands clasped between his knees. He doesn't know if she'll be back and half suspects that he pushed too far.

It's frustrating. He knows it has only been a month - a short time compared to how long these things usually take, he's not so arrogant that he thought she would fall for him so quickly - but he'd hoped there would at least be some small connection. In bed she's a wildcat, she lies with him until he falls asleep and leaves then so he doesn't know where she's going. She could be leaving her body on the kitchen floor and possessing new victims at night to satisfy her blood cravings. For all he knows her talk about being ostracised and persecuted for choosing to be his companion is nothing but a lie.

When they're awake there's a spark, but he knows nothing about her. Sam doesn't love her, but he wishes that he could have the opportunity to grow into it. The demon in Ruby's body won t let him get close, or maybe there's nothing to get close to. He doesn't even know its name.

All he knows is that it prefers to inhabit female bodies, likes the colour red the best, and likes the way salads crunch. All of the rest is normal. It loves blood, it likes to bait the humans that it's not allowed to torture, and it has its own unspoken agenda.

It's late when the black beauty finally pulls into the driveway again. Ten at night with no stars and barely a sliver of moon. Dean stumbles out of the car with a bottle of sloshing amber liquid in hand. Sam watches from a second storey window as his brother grins back at Castiel and says something that makes him react by taking the bottle away and tossing it into the garden.

Dean goes for his lover, hands sliding up under Castiel's jacket. They're both drunk, but if it weren't for the way that the smaller man sways on his feet Sam wouldn't be able to tell. He watches them kiss and stumble towards the front door, stepping on each other s feet until the angle is wrong and he can't see it when someone slams into the door.

Sam steps away from the window and runs a hand through his hair. He hadn't been jealous of Dean for a long time. The feeling sits unpleasant in his stomach, a hard weight that makes him feel sick on the inside. He can hear it when the door opens and the sound of footsteps on the hardwood floor after it slams shut again. The rustle of clothing sounds absurdly loud, he can hear each item drop to the floor. Jacket, shirt, the sound of a zipper opening.

He doesn't really want to but he finds himself moving anyway, to the top of the stairs where he can see Castiel leaning back against Dean's chest, half naked, pants open, as Dean pushes fingers into his mouth while his other hand slides under the waistband of his boxers. Castiel's eyes are closed, lips pressed tight around the fingers in his mouth. He rocks back against Dean, almost begging, almost a dance when Dean pushes his hips forward in a matching rhythm. The fingers are pulled from his mouth and move instead to splay against his throat, pressing tight, threatening to cut off his air.

Sam thinks about walking down the stairs, about imposing his presence and forcing his brother to step aside so he can take Castiel for himself. He thinks about bending the blue-eyed man over the kitchen table and whipping him with the brass buckle of his belt. Then he turns away and shuts himself in the bedroom with Ruby's discarded clothing, imagining the soft curves of her body under his hands.

He and Dean used to share everything. Now their lives are so much more private and Sam isn't sure he knows how to cope yet.

-

* * *

-

Two days pass before Ruby shows up again. She walks in through the front door as if nothing had happened, acting like she'd never taken off and left Sam sitting alone. She's wearing a new jacket made of cherry red leather, and he has to wonder whether she's not using her name as an excuse.

"You're back," Sam observes, aiming for neutral as he looks her over for any sign of where she might have been.

"Don't sound so surprised." Ruby takes her jacket off and drapes it over the back of a chair. She looks fresh, as if she d just come back from a day at the spa, but there are bruises mottling the back of her shoulder. They must be recent to not have healed completely. Purplish-red markings that don t quite look like marks from hands. Sam examines them from a distance, suspicion making him frown.

"Where did you go?"

"I went away, Sam. Where isn't any of your business."

"I think you're forgetting why I summoned you in the first place. Everything you do is my business."

Ruby turns, lips twisted into a humourless smirk. "I'm not bound to you. I can come and go as I please."

"While the rest of the world thinks you're something to be hunted and killed." Sam stalks forward, raising a hand to touch her bruised shoulder. A spark of gratification lights up in his chest when she flinches. He caresses her, calloused fingers brushing lightly against the purple colouring her skin. "You may as well be bound to me, Ruby. You're a demon and you haven't tried to kill me, you're here of your own free will and now none of your own kind will touch you. Curiosity doomed you. You might still be able to leave, but no demon is ever going to trust you after you came to me."

He knows it rings true when she looks away, burning and unable to look him in the eye. He can tell that she's pissed, can feel the anger radiating off her thick in the air.

"You're not what I expected," the demon says eventually. She takes a step back, her lips curling in disgust. "Sam Winchester, the famous half-breed. Azazel's masterpiece. And you're a joke with no ambition."

"What exactly were you expecting?"

"You're not even going to use the Colt are you?" Ruby demands. She turns to pace the length of the kitchen, the low heels of her boots clicking angrily against the tiles. "You go to all that trouble just for the sake of what, Sam? Just because you can? Just to keep it away from other people?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"Do you even know," Ruby stops, her voice raising so loud that it seems to echo in the confined space of the kitchen, "what the Colt is meant to be for?"

Sam's eyes keep changing, flicking between their natural colour and the bright yellow that happens when he feels less than calm. His hands are clenched into fists as he speaks; "The only reason I ever wanted the Colt was to keep anyone from ever using it on me."

Ruby actually laughs. Incredulous laughter, like she can't believe he could actually mean it. "It doesn't take the Colt to kill you! You're only half demon, you can be killed in plenty of other messy, undignified ways."

"I die as I am and I go to Hell," Sam explains as calmly as possible, digging his fingernails into his palms. "I go through a millennia of torture and I come out the other side with pretty black eyes like yours. Someone shoots me with the Colt and I cease to exist."

Her momentary silence proves that he has a point.

"You're right," Sam continues, "I don't want to use the Colt to kill anything or to start anything. If you wanted that you came to the wrong man."

Ruby doesn't stick around to let it sink in, or maybe it already has and its her way of telling Sam that he's stuck with her too. She stomps up the stairs, slamming her foot down on each one as if it had personally offended her. A minute later Sam can hear the taps in the bathroom start spewing water into the tub. He adds one more thing to the list he's compiling in his head; Ruby likes soaking in steaming hot baths. She likes to stew her borrowed flesh in the tub to wash away anger or frustration until the negative feelings are bearable enough to leave the water.

The irony of a demon with negative feelings makes him smile.

He ignores her and makes himself a cup of sugar-laced milky coffee.

The sex that night is enough to make the windows rattle and Sam's eyes flash yellow. He comes down from his high to hear Dean yelling at him from the other bedroom where the light bulb blew out and the mirror cracked. Sam doesn't bother to check the lights in the room – he knows the lights are dead, he can feel the thin glass from the overhead light crunching under his back, trapped between folds of the sheets. Ignorable, nothing more than annoyance, he brushes the glass aside and settles against the mattress with a sigh.

He wakes to the sound of electric buzzing in his ear and reaches out to swat the clock radio on the bedside table. Only after he's slammed the thing down hard enough to break off one of the buttons does he realise that he never actually set an alarm. His first thought is that Dean came in while he was sleeping and set it as a half-hearted revenge. His next thought, upon seeing the note, is more like a string of incoherent cursing.

There were only two words and a set of numbers. 'Sorry Sam' scrawled in a script that looked far too elegant to have been taught in a modern school, plus digits that pinpointed a latitude and longitude. Further examination revealed that the Colt was missing.

The only plus side he could see was that she wanted him to come find her. The problem was that he didn't know if that was because she liked him, or because it would make it that much more convenient for them to kill each other if they were both in the same location.

Sam barely has his jeans on as he barges into the other bedroom, interrupting his brother during what was obviously the early stages of a mild hangover. "Ruby's gone," Sam states, mercilessly loud.

Dean winces at the sound of Sam's voice, obviously tempted to just throw the covers back over his head and ignore the younger Winchester. When he speaks he doesn't sound entirely awake; "Dude, she's been gone for a week already. This isn't big news."

"She came back last night, we slept together, now she's gone."

"Aww, is Sammy upset 'cause he got ditched? It's eight in the fucking morning. Go cry on someone else's shoulder."

"Dean, she took the Colt."

"... Well, fuck."

"She left coordinates." Sam grabs the blanket and yanks it off the bed, exposing his brother's boxer-clad form to the cool morning air. "So get up and get moving. We're going after her."

Dean groans, but rolls himself out of the bed and reaches for the pair of jeans lying crumpled on the floor nearby. "Fine. Whatever. But I want some coffee first."

Sam is about to leave Dean to it when he notices something that makes him frown and wonder why he hadn't actually noticed it before. "Where's Cas?"

Half way into his jeans, Dean stops and gives Sam a look that bleeds incredulity through the fog of sleep and headache. "I'm supposed to know?"

"Don't you usually this time of morning?"

"He's downstairs or something. I don't know."

There's nothing strange in Dean's tone, nothing there but early-morning grumpiness exacerbated by his alcohol consumption last night. Sam can hear an implication anyway, even knowing that Dean wasn't thinking any such thing. Sam can still hear it; Castiel is trustworthy, and Ruby is not.

It takes them just under an hour to pack up and get everything into the car. It would have taken less time, but Dean had insisted on coffee before he did anything else, needing the caffeine as a barrier to keep between himself and his headache. Two small white painkillers and one phone call later the brothers Winchester are seated in the front of the black beauty, waiting for Castiel to get back from the beach.

The blue-eyed man shows up barely two minutes later, as calm and collected as ever despite his wind-ruffled appearance and the sand clinging to the soles and sides of his shoes. He takes them off before he gets into the car and wraps them in his jacket. He doesn't say 'I told you so' but Sam can read it clear as day in his eyes. Demons weren't trustworthy, and Castiel had never liked Ruby.

Sam looks away first.

He turns the key in the ignition and barely avoids making the tyres squeal as he pulls out of the driveway onto the road. His hands grip the wheel tight, his foot is lead against the accelerator and Romeo and the Lonely Girl is a mocking soundtrack playing quietly from the stereo speakers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes**: This is the last you'll see of the Angelface Universe for a while. My inspiration has temporarily wandered off into weirder pastures - yes, even weirder than unpopular versions of mass-murdering Winchesters.

To the one person who left a review - you rock. I'm glad I could make an impression.

-

* * *

-

The only way Sam knows that he's got the right place is the sleek bright red sports car parked irreverently across several graves near the parking lot. He jumps out of the black beauty, leaving the keys in her ignition. His long legs eat up the distance between the parking lot and the centre of the graveyard; He can feel the disturbance in the air and he knows he s too late to stop whatever ridiculous thing that she needed the Colt for.

Distantly, like listening through a fog, Sam can hear Dean chasing after him. Heavy footfalls on the thin, dry grass, pounding over the top of graves with stones that date back hundreds of years. They're running over the tops of broken boxes and long-dead flesh. Sam can feel the corpses, can feel how the ones closest to the mausoleum in the centre are buried face down.

Ruby stands in front of an open gate.

Darkness is beginning to cloud the air, reaching up into the sky like a terrifying new kind of thunder storm. The Colt lies at her feet, discarded in the dirt. Sam wouldn't give it a second thought if he didn't already know that it had to be important.

"What the fuck did you do?" Sam yells over the cacophony of un-noise made by the dark.

Ruby doesn t look at him, dark eyes trained on the open mausoleum gates. "I cracked open the iron lines," she tells him, "and opened a gate to Hell."

Time has slowed down as Sam stares at the demon, anger warring with total disbelief. She turns her head slowly to look at him with a small smile that reminds him too much of a spoiled girl in a woman's body. He lashes out, slapping her across the face before he even realises that he's moved.

"If you go, you go. You don't steal the Colt and invite me to a play-date with Hell!"

"Does someone want to tell me," Dean's voice finally catches up with him, his brother standing beside him and staring at the open gate, "what the hell is going on here?"

Ruby laughs. She doubles up, hands folded over her stomach. Sam grabs the back of her collar and pulls her back up. "Hell is going on," Sam tells his brother, shoving the Ruby-demon at him, "take her and the Colt and get out of here. I'm shutting that gate."

Dean slams a hand over Ruby s face, covering her mouth and nose. She stops breathing, suffocating under his grip as he drags her away through the maze of tombstones and grave markers back towards the black beauty. A human would be dead by the time they reach the car, the demon is just staring straight ahead, her hands clutching his forearm, the rest of her body strangely limp. She's far too compliant, too easy to stuff into the back seat. Dean looks over his shoulder at Cas and sees why. Eyes hard, Castiel has the Colt aimed straight at the back of the demon's head.

"I'm not going anywhere," Ruby says, arranging herself so that she's sitting up on her own and not sprawled across the seat. "You can put the gun down."

"Screw you, demons lie."

"If I lie I do it with the truth. You can trust me."

"Yeah, says the bitch who took off with our valuable antique gun and used it to somehow open a direct line to Hell."

"There's only one demon I wanted out of Hell -"

"Dean." Cas' voice interrupts the demon, sounding odd.

Dean turns away from her to look back at the graveyard. The sky is an inky black that blocks out the sun as effectively as any eclipse. What little light came through was strange, casting odd shadows. Lightning flashes and roils in the cloud's darkness. A sound like stone grating on stone scrapes through the air. Thunder crashes through the graveyard, the sound seeming to scatter the darkness in the sky. Within moments everything was lit again with bright sunlight.

It takes Sam ten minutes to stagger into view, blood smeared under his nose and on the cuff of his right sleeve.

He cuts off any comments before they could be made by raising a hand that trembled with sheer exhaustion. "We're getting out of here," he says wearily, practically collapsing against the side of the car. "And we are never, ever coming back."

"Sam," Ruby speaks from inside the impala, leaning across the seat so she can see his face through the frame of the open window.

"Don't you even think about speaking to me."

"Would you like me to shoot her?" Cas asks drily.

"I'm still here," Ruby points out, ignoring the gun still trained on her in favour of staring Sam down from inside the car. Bent low over the seat she looks deceptively submissive. Sam isn't going to stake so much as a penny on the idea that she was actually submitting. "I could have just left," she adds, "I could have stolen the gun and left you without a single clue. I didn't have to spend the night with you, I could have slit your throat in the middle of the night and you never would have seen it coming."

"That's really reassuring, Ruby." Sam sighs, tilting his head back when he feels the headache beginning to build behind his eyes.

"And you've mastered the art of sarcasm."

Dean smirks. "Keep it up, bitch. I'd just love an excuse to have the angel here shoot you right between the eyes."

Ruby throws a look at the elder Winchester so sharp that it could have cut diamonds. She turns her gaze back at Sam and asks; "Can we have this conversation without Misters Todd and Hyde hanging on every word looking for an excuse to shoot?"

The world seems to fall silent for a little while. Sam blocks out the headache pressing behind his eyes as best he can and looks at his brother. Despite every change in their lives he can still read Dean like a book. "No," he says finally. "If you have a defence to make, you make it right now. We don't have secrets, Ruby."

The demon looks like she wants to protest, body taut and hands clenched into fists. She grinds her teeth and chews on her tongue until there are points of pain in her mouth, muted by the fact that the flesh isn't actually hers. "Fine," she says eventually, and offers her only defence. "I'm a demon, Sam. What exactly did you expect?"

"That's it? That s the only reason you ve got for stealing the Colt and running off to open a devil's gate?"

"My father, Azazel. He was in Hell. I owed him, now -"

"Azazel?" Sam cuts in, frowning, "the yellow-eyed demon?"

Dean whistles. He remembers the passages from their father's journal just as well as Sam does, remembers the discussions about why John was still Sam's father even if biologically Sam was the product of a demon. He remembers the circumstances under which John Winchester had banished the yellow-eyed demon to Hell. "Dude. Awkward."

Ruby rolls her eyes. "It doesn't matter for you whether he's out of Hell or not. Sam has no ambition, which our father will learn soon enough."

"It is not in a demon's nature to ask." Castiel lowers the Colt, an unlikely ally to offer aid to Ruby's defence.

"I'll bind myself to you," Ruby offers, stretching further along the back seat to hold out one of her slender, delicate hands in supplication, "and to this body. I don't love you. Sam. I think your choice not to pursue your talents is disgusting and weak, but being with you is better than being in Hell and more interesting than being alone."

The Winchester brothers exchange looks. Sam raises his eyebrows. "Back seat voudou?"

Dean sighs. He grabs Castiel's wrist and pulls the other man towards the black beauty. "Lets get the hell out of here and back to somewhere with indoor plumbing. I'm sick of looking at these goddamn tombstones."


End file.
